Gotham Girls Roller Derby

For me, the real skewing in +/- stats comes when one team loses their jammer. A player's +/- will get a huge bump in one direction depending on whether it's her jammer in the box or the opposing team's jammer. If a skater is always called on to kill jammer penalties then that skater is going to suffer a hit to their point differential just because of the role she's used in. Or, if a player is lucky enough to find herself on the track when the opposing team's jammer goes to the box a few times she'll have a highly positive differential.

Blocker penalties, by comparison, tend to have much smaller effects on overall +/- though there are certain exceptions to that rule.

If someone has time to run +/- numbers excluding jams that had jammer penalties, I would love to see them. I don't have the time right now though.

Hyper Lynx wrote:Are we talking just home games or our travel games as well? I'm not worried about home games as yes they are on TV and we can show them how awesome rinxter is; but I don't really want to share our TT stats if other teams are not doing the same.

Actually all leagues are required by WFTDA policies to submit stats for any sanctioned bout they host. Any other WFTDA league has access to those stats.

Your apparent concern is pretty unfounded. Realistically, a few people (me being one) could probably figure out a thing or two about a team based upon their stats. I can look at them and get a good idea about who their best jammers and blockers are, see if they have a grasp of penalty management, see what kinds of penalties they are prone to get called on them, and maybe get a rough idea of how they set their lineups.

A good coach would have this stuff figured out by watching a few jams, checking those DVDs they bought at East Region Playoffs or Championships, and by reading archived DNN boutcasts. I can tell my team's coaches what to expect from the other team, but it's certainly no roadmap that leads us to the foolproof strategy that will beat them.

"Don't put a soft lineup in against Bonnie Thunders." I guess we already knew that!

I still am not making it easy for another team to just download our cheat sheet if we're the only ones doing it. All I'm saying is Share and share alike. Although I am open to sharing stats if it's to showcase Rinxter

Grand_Poobah wrote:Your apparent concern is pretty unfounded. Realistically, a few people (me being one) could probably figure out a thing or two about a team based upon their stats. I can look at them and get a good idea about who their best jammers and blockers are, see if they have a grasp of penalty management, see what kinds of penalties they are prone to get called on them, and maybe get a rough idea of how they set their lineups.

Yeah but unfortunately a lot of this can be self-fulfilling fuffle. You'd be relying on that team's managers to be making optimal use of their resources. That doesn't happen. And all you wind up knowing is who their FREQUENT jammers and blockers are. Stats should be exposing who their BEST jammers and blockers are - helping find the gems in the rough. Stats should be exposing managers for iffy decisions. At this point it still feels to me like stats too often serve as ex-post-facto justifications for managers.

And there are so many other variables. One of my favorite stats in derby was the westerns 2010 game where I ran the scoreboard for Bay Area game vs Rocky Mountain, where there were a total of THREE jammer minutes spent in the penalty box, THE WHOLE GAME. Deranged went for one minute, and Astronaughty for two (both in the same jam). Wow, so those teams must have the cleanest jammers ever! Well, fast forward to nationals 2010 and clearly that was an outlier. Was it the refs? The defenses? The moon phase?